We’ve got the snow, here are five more ways to feel a little more Canadian and a little less West Coast this week.

5) Drink Molson’s and loudly repeat all of its marketing slogans. Remember the one where Samatha Bee’s husband said all those things about Canada and then got tied up and put in a jet? That made us all feel better about drinking beer, right?

4) Find the real deep meanings inside Nickleback songs. I mean this is emotional shit, don’t you feel it? Also combine this with number five and enjoy some cold ones while driving [cjm]. This is how you remind me of something and something else…

3) Send Mayor Sullivan to Afghanistan to support the troops. I hear Kandahar could use some Eco-Density [ss].

2) Skip yoga and spend the day in a Tim Horton’s. Hmmm donuts, is there nothing they can’t do?

1) Put pants on. Really I don’t care what hip spot you’re going to in Yaletown, it’s too cold to be outside in a skirt that goes up to there even if you did shave your legs.

Posted in Vancouver 5 | Comments Off on The Vancouver Five: Canadian snow

I have to give a big thumbs up to Translink and the District of Burnaby & the City of Vancouver (and whoever takes care of our roads during inclement weather). My best two days of commuting have been these last two snow days. I mean it.

Yesterday: I had to make another trip to the bank due to ANOTHER episode* of fraudulent transactions to our account. Only, this time not only was a duplicate card used to withdraw money out of our account, there was the added surprise of the people making a “deposit” of fifteen hundred non-existent dollars in an attempt to trick the bank machine to take out more money. Lucky for us, the bank machine didn’t fall for it and stopped all action into and out of our account, which I found out at the grocery store on Monday night. ANYWAY…(more…)

Posted in Translink | Comments Off on I’ll take another snow day, please.

I’m planning a drive to Kelowna tomorrow and so have been checking the B.C. Highway Cams [bhc] to try to determine whether or not I should be risking my life on the Coquihalla. Overall it looks grey, but unless snow is actually falling they’re quite good at keeping the highway clear.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a real issue with the Coquihalla, though I remember trips as a kid when the family mini-van would get stopped at the toll bridge for hours because they had closed the highway down. Last year I did have one scary drive where I pretty much had to accept the zen notion that I could not know what was going on more than a foot and a half beyond my windshield due to fallling snow.

I said zen, what I meant to say was scary.

Posted in Travel, Weather | Comments Off on Checking the Coquihalla web cams

Every Year Tourism Vancouver puts on Dine Out Vancouver [tv] which provides an opportunity for locals and tourists alike to try some of Vancouver’s best restaurants at a reasonable price. The event runs from January 16th through to February 3rd. The other night my girlfriend Lydia and I went to Raincity Grill [tv]. For my foodie girlfriend’s review of the meal go here [mm]. For my less accomplished tongue’s take on the meal read on.

Raincity Grill1193 Denman St. Vancouver, B.C.
V6G 2N1
604-685-7337

There are some meals that are incredibly good. There are some meals that are fantastic. The Raincity Grill’s Seared Fraser Valley chicken (pictured above) is neither of those because quite frankly it was perfect. The entree was the best thing I have ever eaten. I mean ever, ever. It was so good that I felt that the rest of the resturant was actually privileged to watch me eat it, and I’m sure that the other patrons went home and spoke of my meal in the hushed tones of reverence that some people use for having seen the Beatles play the Cavern Club in Liverpool [cc] or how people who were at the fight speak of the Ali / Forman Rumble in the Jungle [wp]. My meal was a once in a lifetime event that may possibly have changed the course of human history.

But I’m getting ahead of myself and soon you might be suspecting that my enthusiasm is dropping into the realm of hyperbole. It is not, and I stand by my statement, that this is the greatest meal I have ever eaten. It started out kind of shitty though, I mean I really hated the starter.(more…)

I know it’s a thing that’s done fairly regularly by all sorts of papers, including ones with award winning design like The Globe and Mail, but can’t we all just agree that the front page banner headline over top of a completely unrelated photograph is kind of terrible?

Walking past a 24 Hours [24h] box on the street you see the headline “Child drug mules” in large bold letters and then below it a picture of the new Vancouver Canadians logo. Our local semi-pro baseball team is running a ring of child drug mules? What?

If I were the Canadians’ press officer I’d be pretty annoyed by the implied association. Of course the argument is that there is no implied association intended, but with design like this how can it be helped?

I know I know. They have this nice picture of the new logo, but gosh they want readers to know that there are underaged drug mules somehow destroying the city, so what can they do? Make a rational editorial choice?

Hells no.

Put at least one of the stories in the feature boxes at the top? Well then how will they advertise the fact that they know who that Scarlett Johansson is maybe (or maybe not) marrying?

For most of us it’s old news. Todd Bertuzzi hit Steve Moore in a cheap and dirty hit and nearly four years later it’s still one of the biggest sports stories in the city. Thanks to the wonders of the legal system we’ve still got new revelations about that fateful night to make headlines; the latest of which is that then Canucks coach Marc Crawford tried to call Bertuzzi off the ice moments before the Moore hit [cbc].

Moore is suing Bertuzzi and the Canucks, saying that Bertuzzi was told to get Moore by the Canucks organization, or at least the coaching staff. The Canucks are arguing that nobody in their organization wanted Bertuzzi to get Moore, though I suspect that at least one of the pretzel guys in the concourse probably hoped that Moore would get his ass kicked.

The hit is going to continue to dominate the backpages of local papers for the next few months until the trial wraps up. Then as is the custom I’m sure there will be an appeal by one side or the other, so we can look forward to another four years of this.

Honestly Bertuzzi did a shitty thing, but somewhere in the NHL at least one player does a shitty thing every night of the season. Bertuzzi’s bad luck was that Moore was seriously injuried as a result, and that it looked terrible on camera. He’ll never live it down, and it’ll be sometime until the Canucks do.

Posted in Canucks | Comments Off on Bertuzzi’s hit still haunts this city

Every Year Tourism Vancouver puts on Dine Out Vancouver [tv] which provides an opportunity for locals and tourists alike to try some of Vancouver’s best restaurants at a reasonable price. The event runs from January 16th through to February 3rd. The other night my girlfriend Lydia and I went to The Flying Tiger [tv]. For my foodie girlfriend’s review of the meal go here [mm]. For my less accomplished tongue’s take on the meal read on.

The Flying Tiger2958 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
604-737-7529

After going to Bistro Pastis [mbv] and Aurora Bistro [mbv] so far on my year of meals for Dine Out Vancouver I was actually glad to discover upon arrival that The Flying Tiger was quite a bit more laid back than our first two resturant choices. With a televsion in one corner showing sports, and relaxed ambient music throughout the resturant it certainly had a different vibe than we’d experianced previously.

We were quickly seated at a table by the open kitchen. In most resturants “by the kitchen” is code for the shitty seats, because you get tied up in the flood of activity of food going in and and plus the heat from the kitchen plays havok with the temperature. None of that was a factor, and being able to watch the kitchen staff turn out meals gave us an enticing preview of what we were about to be served.(more…)

It was only three years ago that I took in my first Canadians game, ever. It was then that I discovered that an afternoon out in the sun, surrounded by trees, facing the city and mountains and feasting on hot dogs and beer was pretty amazing. The fact that you can do all this for under $20 makes a day at Nat Bailey Stadium just that much more perfect.

Today the team launched a brand new logo for their upcoming season.

The new design takes its cues from “old time” baseball while combining with the colours and themes of the recently-revitalized Nat Bailey Stadium, the Canadians much-loved ballpark. The clean, contemporary font compliments the retro “C” graphic, while the stitching effect was a natural fit to create the baseball within the logo. [Canadians Baseball]

Last summer I arranged for my office to have the “executive suite” for an afternoon game in August. Since then I’ve been in the Canadians’ good books and have received news updates, a Christmas card signed by all the staff, and information about the 2008 season complete with a baseball card for one of the players. They’re an approachable, and community-driven organization and I’m pretty excited about the chance to head out to the prettiest little ballpark around – even if I’m not even the biggest baseball fan.

Does Sean Orr wake up at four in the morning to do the Morning Brew [br]? That sort of dedication to blogging unnerves me. It either means he’s getting paid, or that he’s the night valet at the Bayshore.

In any case it’s good to see it back after a day’s hiatus, and no I don’t think you’re Bruce Allan because then I’d have to blame so much terrible music on you Mr. Orr. Plus I never believed you were a racist, just in our species’ ability to put our feet in our mouths.